


"I told you to go, didn't I?"

by carmelitilla



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alone, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Bellarke, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Loneliness, Please come back, Survival, blame, first time talking on the radio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 08:52:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14808179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmelitilla/pseuds/carmelitilla
Summary: For 2,199 days, Clarke feels empty.Clarke through waking up in Becca's lab and surviving the first days of Praimfaya to not feeling whole again until Bellamy shows up in the Eligius camp. Sweet, sweet reunion.





	"I told you to go, didn't I?"

For 2,199 days, Clarke feels empty.

At first she tells herself it’s the radiation sickness. It probably is anyways, and it’s probably killing her.

She lays on the floor of Becca’s lab fading in and out of consciousness. She hears the death wave clawing at her, bellowing that it will have her. The closest thing she can describe it to is a storm — except instead of rain, it’s fire.

Half lucid, she dreams she was too late. She forgets the rocket taking off. She believes her friends are dead in the rocket launch bay below her. She hopes she dies too — she can’t outlive one more person she loves.

When Praimfaya is a dull rush against the bunker, its flames licking the concrete walls outside, she becomes aware she’s awake. It’s fleeting. She’s not strong enough to move, but she’s aware of her chest forcing air to chafe and burn up and down her throat as she breathes.

And then she has to know. The darkest part of her that tells her everyone is dead, that she didn’t deserve to die with them, has to be proven wrong. She manages to slide her hand to her side before she passes out again.

When she’s conscious enough to drag herself to the edge of the loft she thinks the pain is half of what keeps her awake. There are open sores all over her body from her skin boiling and reacting to the radiation. The cotton shift she wears under her hazard suit feels like sandpaper across them.

But her fingers curl around the edge, and then around the first rod of the thin iron railing and then the second. She manages her feet underneath her and forces herself to look down at the launch bay.

She lets out a strangled cry and slumps over the railing. There are no bodies. There’s no rocket.

That hope fuels her to find water, food and to heal. She strips everything off and sleeps on her side. She switches every night, trying to limit the surface area of her body against the floor. She ignores the emptiness. She chalks it up to nausea just trying to survive for one more day.

When she can walk a little better than waddle, she starts digging herself out of the lab. By the time her water runs out she get the door open. She takes that as a sign but wonders why, if her body is stronger, the pit churning in her stomach hasn’t passed. She doesn’t linger on it — she’s alive, that’s enough.

It isn’t until after the first rain that she finds the radio. She’s been using Becca’s lab as her home base, mapping a radius around it. She wants to head for the 1,200 bunker, but she’s terrified. What if something goes wrong? What if the rover breaks down? What if she runs out of water? What if, what if, what if — and then she sees the antenna sticking out from under the lab countertops.

Her hands shake as she picks it up. She adjusts the radio dial to _their_ frequency. She goes outside and stares up at the orange sky before bringing it to her lips, “Hello?”

Her tongue is languid. She hasn't had anyone to talk to in — she doesn't want to think about it.

“Raven? Can you hear me?” she asks, because she’s too scared to ask for anyone else. She takes a steadying breath. “Raven, it’s — it’s me.”

As Clarke listens to the static coming through the radio she pictures Raven, all genius and sass and ponytail. She pictures her smiling wide at the sound of her voice over the radio, her brown eyes lighting up.

“Raven, I’m alive. It’s me, I’m alive.”

_Static._

Clarke swallows, “I guess it’s a little bit of a shock, huh?”

_Static._

It feels like two hands are gripping each other inside her. They’re squeezing as hard as they can. She reaches out, hoping they’ll pull her from the pit.

_Static._

Clarke sinks to her knees. She wants to be strong. She doesn’t want them to worry. Her eyes burn, “R-raven, I need you to — are you there?”

Her lower lip trembles. A sob wracks her chest. She gasps for air as the pit widens, threatening to swallow her whole. When she feels like she can't stop it's advance she gasps, “Bellamy?”

_Static._

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “Bellamy? I tried so hard. Please, don’t leave me.”

She thinks he’ll be there when she looks up. Thinks she can run to him and he’ll save her, again. She can’t do this on her own. “Bellamy, you know I can’t do this without you.”

Clarke knows if he can hear her she’s breaking his heart. But she doesn’t care, she’s been abandoned. They’ve all left her. She did everything she could and they still left her.

“But I told you to go, didn’t I,” she says over the static. She cries into sobs into her breast, curling in on herself. _Why did I tell them to go?_

Clarke takes a deep breath and looks out across the desert. She pictures him there in her minds eye. The edges of his dark hair glow in the sunlight. His hands hang relaxed by his sides. That steadies her a bit. She imagines his jaw is set as he tries to hold back the same dam of emotions, trying not to be overwhelmed. She pretends she can see it all barely hidden by the thin veil of his dark eyes.

“It’s OK, you can admit it,” she sobs. “I told you to go, didn’t I?”

He crosses his arms and looks at the ground. He swallows hard. He's shaking.

“Hey,” she says imagining she’s in front of him. She puts her palms on either side of his face and pulls him to look at her. She strokes her thumbs across his cheeks. There's tears there. She wipes them from the thin field of freckles under his eyes.

“I told you to go,” she says into the radio, trying to convince herself.

“You listened, Bellamy. It was the first time ever,” she let’s out a sharp laugh, nodding to herself. “But you did the right thing, you saved everyone.”

Clarke tells herself he couldn’t have saved her. She wouldn't have been happy with him if he had. She would just have to save herself this time.

That half-hearted lie keeps her going until she meets Maddie. The little nightblood whose just as alone in the world as she is. Clarke's not ashamed to admit Maddie saves her life. She tells her so on more than one occasion.

When the empty — the nausea her medical training tells her it is — grows too large for her to reign in, Maddie fills it. Clarke almost forgets its there, even smiles, even laughs.

So she starts lying to Bellamy too, for his sake. She pretends everything's OK, she's strong for both Maddie and Bellamy. She tells him about every day. She tells him she’s OK, they’re OK and about inconsequential things that she thinks would keep them both preoccupied.

The pit closes for a while. The empty is kept at bay until the Eligius lands.

Clarke's half-delirious when the rover pulls up. If she's shocked again she'll lose consciousness, she knows. The headlights blind her. 

"I'm unarmed, I just want to talk." 

Clarke stops breathing. The hole that she's spent the last six year's carefully filling in rips open. 

"Talk? Give me one good reason not to kill you where you stand," says the ship's captain. 

"How about I give you 283. That's how many of your people are gonna die if you and I can't make a deal," he says. She can see him as the rover backs up. He's standing in front of her, his eyes unwavering as they meet hers. She argues with herself that he's there. The pain from being shocked over and over again should be the thing keeping her grounded. It isn't.

“Two-hundred and eighty-three lives for one. She must be pretty important to you.”

"She is," he half nods checking her over even as she scans him. Maybe he doesn't believe she's real either. 

 _I am,_ she screams internally. She needs him to know so he won't close the door, so he won't fly away again.

Someone grabs her arms and hauls her up. They're dragging her backwards — away from him. 

"No!" Clarke shouts hoarsely. "Bellamy!" she cries as she fights against her captures. "You can't! Let me go! Bellamy!" 

When they slam the door to her cell she throws herself against it.

"Let me out! Bellamy!" she screams. 

The darkest part of her surfaces again. It whispers that she's finally too broken. She's hallucinating again. She's in hell. 

Clarke curls up on the cold metal bench in the cell. She succumbs to the pit, let's it swallow her up and holds onto the dull ache that resonates from her earlier torture. She tells herself he wasn't there. The physical pain is worth more to her sanity than any dream of escape. 

She almost misses the click of the door opening. She looks over her shoulder hoping someone will be standing there with a gun. 

Time slows as Bellamy's silhouette comes into focus. Her heart clenches and stutters. She tries not to believe it. 

He runs to her side and pulls her up. His hands are real. His skin on her skin, it's real. 

Clarke just looks at him for a moment. He's staring back at her, cutting through the lies and the bullshit and it must be him — he's the only one who ever looked at her like that. He sees her. He knows she's there.

Clarke throws her arms around him. She keeps her arms resting on his forearms, he keeps one hand on her hip — desperately tethering each to the other when they have to pull apart.

For the first time, in so long that she'd nearly forgotten the pit was there, Clarke isn't afraid of falling. 


End file.
